Infill projects in downtown Fayetteville

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Y'all should check out the new house we are building at 305 E. Maple behind the rock house rehab we are doing at 432 N. Willow. This is a classic, all wood and stone, brand new two bedroom one and a half bath house built to look old. It is on a 4900 square foot lot and will have 1375 square feet of heated and cooled space. It's already sold--was before I even started! We just finished our third week of building and it is really coming along.....

I know there are other infill projects so I thought we should start a new thread for them when any of us discovers a new one.

M

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Good idea for a topic. They are a ways off from the center of town but there are two new houses that have been built on North St. just up the hill from Gregg. They qualify as infill- they carved the lots out of the woods on the side of the hill along there.

It's surprising how much vacant land there is in the center of town. If you just drive along the main streets it may not seem like it but if you take the side streets there are a lot of vacant lots that could be developed.

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Not sure if this qualifies as "downtown", but this project is before the PC in Fayetteville. Its called Narrow Escapes, and I think its being squeezed into a narrow strip of land between Frisco Street (the one-lane, low water bridge on the west side of Wilson Park) and the RR trax.

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Not sure if this qualifies as "downtown", but this project is before the PC in Fayetteville. Its called Narrow Escapes, and I think its being squeezed into a narrow strip of land between Frisco Street (the one-lane, low water bridge on the west side of Wilson Park) and the RR trax.

Thanks for the info. I haven't heard anything about this. Interesting idea to squeeze that development in. But I'm just waiting to hear people complain about it. At least it's being listed as condos instead of apartments. But I imagine because it's something 'different' for that area some people will have big objections to it. I can't help but wonder if the Fayetteville Trail System will help encourage more developments like this. I'd think it would be a big draw being close to the trail system.

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I am going to file for a lot split off of the house I just bought at 603 N. Olive. If I get it, I will be building a super high-quality, 950 square foot two bedroom, one and a half bath house there on an 80 by 50 lot with a driveway off of the alley. Hopefully, the City will let me do it. Our project at 305 E. Maple (cut off of 432 N. Willow) was well-received by the neighborhood. It is on a 70 by 70 lot.

Mark

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I am going to file for a lot split off of the house I just bought at 603 N. Olive. If I get it, I will be building a super high-quality, 950 square foot two bedroom, one and a half bath house there on an 80 by 50 lot with a driveway off of the alley. Hopefully, the City will let me do it. Our project at 305 E. Maple (cut off of 432 N. Willow) was well-received by the neighborhood. It is on a 70 by 70 lot.

Mark

Do you have a price point that you want to meet?

Yeah, being well received by the neighbors is important in getting it approved by the city. Neighborhood opposition seems to kill a lot of good ideas.

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Yeah, being well received by the neighbors is important in getting it approved by the city. Neighborhood opposition seems to kill a lot of good ideas.

Generally I would expect to get around $230-$240 per square foot. We will see. This place could be a little more or a little less depending on many factors (mainly how carried away I get with making it cool!)

This has been before the city planning commission at least once but I am not sure what the outcome was.

I am happy to see a sprucing up and reuse of the old car dealership building myself.

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure if a church exactly contributes to the area that say some commercial space would. But either it does improve another small section of College Ave. Can't really complain about that. Although I might have to agree with you about the style not exactly complimenting the existing style of the church.

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Thanks for the info. I'm not sure if a church exactly contributes to the area that say some commercial space would. But either it does improve another small section of College Ave. Can't really complain about that. Although I might have to agree with you about the style not exactly complimenting the existing style of the church.

The small picture renderings on the update website banner look much smoother than the elevation renderings, it actually might blend pretty well the way those small pictures look. At any rate, I'm happy to see this. The existing old garage they use is functional but not very attractive, and this will make that corner of College look much nicer overall. Since the church already owns the land and building and there's no foreseeable reason they'd ever sell it off as commercial space, I think it's very nice to see one of our largest churches expand in a way that will contribute something to the downtown area, even if only aesthetically.

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Does anyone think anything will ever be built on the corner lot of Mountain street and College Ave? Renn Tower was planned, but i dont see that happening anytime soon, at least in its planned state. Every time i pass that lot it gets uglier and uglier. even if they would just clean up the buildings a little bit more it would look better. The city really needs to do something about this lot. It looks like something you would see in Detroit, not a small downtown like fayetteville. then again, Detroit would just knock down the whole block and make it a parking lot. Sometimes, I think this would be better than looking at that. I think the city should make the developer clean it up until they are ready to build. Honestly, i think this is more of a concern then some of the little more smaller stuff the city has been doing lately.

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Does anyone think anything will ever be built on the corner lot of Mountain street and College Ave? Renn Tower was planned, but i dont see that happening anytime soon, at least in its planned state. Every time i pass that lot it gets uglier and uglier. even if they would just clean up the buildings a little bit more it would look better. The city really needs to do something about this lot. It looks like something you would see in Detroit, not a small downtown like fayetteville. then again, Detroit would just knock down the whole block and make it a parking lot. Sometimes, I think this would be better than looking at that. I think the city should make the developer clean it up until they are ready to build. Honestly, i think this is more of a concern then some of the little more smaller stuff the city has been doing lately.

With the way the current economy is going I don't foresee anything going in to that location for a while either. While it does look bad a lot of those buildings that you are seeing the back of are actually in use. Tearing them down probably wouldn't be the best thing. It might just run out more business and people away from downtown. It would be nice if they could find a way to beautify that area. But who's going to do it? I doubt the developers are going to spend the money for it. I also doubt the city wants to dig into it's own budget for it as well. I suppose the city could try to force the developers to do something. But they also probably should have tried to do that from the beginning. But at the time I don't think many knew the economy was going to tank the way it did. So few probably had any idea that it was going to end up sitting like that for a number of years. But it really would be nice if Fayetteville could get some sort of nice hotel. Either get someone to finally fix up the Cosmo the way it should have been, or get something new. I guess what's really sad is that no one ever got anything really going during the big boom. Honestly that's when Fayetteville should have finally had something going. I'm still not sure why nothing like that ever happened for Fayetteville.

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With the way the current economy is going I don't foresee anything going in to that location for a while either. While it does look bad a lot of those buildings that you are seeing the back of are actually in use. Tearing them down probably wouldn't be the best thing. It might just run out more business and people away from downtown. It would be nice if they could find a way to beautify that area. But who's going to do it? I doubt the developers are going to spend the money for it. I also doubt the city wants to dig into it's own budget for it as well. I suppose the city could try to force the developers to do something. But they also probably should have tried to do that from the beginning. But at the time I don't think many knew the economy was going to tank the way it did. So few probably had any idea that it was going to end up sitting like that for a number of years. But it really would be nice if Fayetteville could get some sort of nice hotel. Either get someone to finally fix up the Cosmo the way it should have been, or get something new. I guess what's really sad is that no one ever got anything really going during the big boom. Honestly that's when Fayetteville should have finally had something going. I'm still not sure why nothing like that ever happened for Fayetteville.

Part of it is the approval process in Fayetteville, something I made mention of in the CityPlan 2030 survey. The city missed out on some of the biggest opportunities (some that may have gone to the north end of the metro particularly) in the boom because they drug the planning approval process for large projects out for many months, or even more than a year. Developers saw that, saw it kill projects or make them cost-prohibitive to build, and either gave up, fled to the north end, or didn't bother proposing anything for Fayetteville to begin with. I'm all for having a lot of the restrictions and requirements Fayetteville does, as it helps ensure a better long-term city, but if you drive some of the big projects into the ground because they can't secure funding anymore (because you kept dragging things out in approval meetings instead of giving more clear instructions from the get-go) you're doing your city a major disservice. The design and approval process in Fayetteville needs to be streamlined and more upfront if the city doesn't want to keep losing things to other cities. I'm not saying they need to water down their requirements, but they certainly need to give developers a clearer set of expectations, a "path to approval" if you will, instead of nitpicking at every meeting and tabling approval or denying it without a strong guidance as to how to improve the project and obtain approval. I know there are a lot of other factors at play that hurt Fayetteville in the development scheme, but this is one that is well within the city's control to fix.

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Part of it is the approval process in Fayetteville, something I made mention of in the CityPlan 2030 survey. The city missed out on some of the biggest opportunities (some that may have gone to the north end of the metro particularly) in the boom because they drug the planning approval process for large projects out for many months, or even more than a year. Developers saw that, saw it kill projects or make them cost-prohibitive to build, and either gave up, fled to the north end, or didn't bother proposing anything for Fayetteville to begin with. I'm all for having a lot of the restrictions and requirements Fayetteville does, as it helps ensure a better long-term city, but if you drive some of the big projects into the ground because they can't secure funding anymore (because you kept dragging things out in approval meetings instead of giving more clear instructions from the get-go) you're doing your city a major disservice. The design and approval process in Fayetteville needs to be streamlined and more upfront if the city doesn't want to keep losing things to other cities. I'm not saying they need to water down their requirements, but they certainly need to give developers a clearer set of expectations, a "path to approval" if you will, instead of nitpicking at every meeting and tabling approval or denying it without a strong guidance as to how to improve the project and obtain approval. I know there are a lot of other factors at play that hurt Fayetteville in the development scheme, but this is one that is well within the city's control to fix.

Good points. I wonder if it's all on the city or if maybe some developers also resisted and tried getting things through anyway. Knowing it probably didn't fit the new requirements. But the city probably could have done a better job trying to clarify the requirements.

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Who owns the lot now? I know that the same guys who lost the Cosmo owned the lot, but has that been foreclosed on also?

I just wish something would be done asap! i know the economy sucks, but god, that corner is ugly.

Maybe with 2011, we will hear something about it. I wounder is any developer has the "stuff" to go in and do something on this corner in the near future.

oh, and i think the city should step up and offer some sorta of tax deal or something. Lets get the ball moving!

The TIF district didn't exactly work out so well for them the first time (although I believe it's still technically in force, isn't it?), I'm sure they're hesitant to offer any new incentive until they're absolutely sure something will proceed. I believe Nock&company still own that lot (as well as most of the buildings on that block), and I'd be very surprised if they weren't doing everything they can to keep ahold of it. Now that it's leveled and the backs of the other buildings are ready to be dealt with, a large scale project on that corner would be easy to get started with the right funding.

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The TIF district didn't exactly work out so well for them the first time (although I believe it's still technically in force, isn't it?), I'm sure they're hesitant to offer any new incentive until they're absolutely sure something will proceed. I believe Nock&company still own that lot (as well as most of the buildings on that block), and I'd be very surprised if they weren't doing everything they can to keep ahold of it. Now that it's leveled and the backs of the other buildings are ready to be dealt with, a large scale project on that corner would be easy to get started with the right funding.

Yes, the TIF district doesn't depend on who owns it- it follows no matter what.

The time stamps are way off these days- I show you posted at today at 7:29 PM- it is 5:46 PM right now. Guess it doesn't really matter but is disconcerting.

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I have a new project that I am working on. It is 15 N. Church St.-- the former home of 40/29 and before that, Ozarks Electric Warehouse. My plan is to completely redo the building and turn it into 8 condos ranging from a little over 500 sq. ft. to around 1300 sq feet at largest. Would also carve a lot/yard off and build a new house on locust, as the property goes clear thru from Church to Locust. I have the property under contract. Have not closed yet. Plan on closing mid-August if all goes well.

Everyone thinks condos are crazy, but in my opinion the ones for sale have been either poorly-designed, too expensive, in the wrong location, or some combination of all of those. I am designing this project with a lot of help from local architect, Jim Key, who also did the conversion of the derelict Curry's Video building into the Skatetorium-- what i considered to be a real transformation of a turd into something quite nice (tho I desperately want to see the owners cut down the horrible weeds sprouting all around it!)

Mark

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I have a new project that I am working on. It is 15 N. Church St.-- the former home of 40/29 and before that, Ozarks Electric Warehouse. My plan is to completely redo the building and turn it into 8 condos ranging from a little over 500 sq. ft. to around 1300 sq feet at largest. Would also carve a lot/yard off and build a new house on locust, as the property goes clear thru from Church to Locust. I have the property under contract. Have not closed yet. Plan on closing mid-August if all goes well.

Everyone thinks condos are crazy, but in my opinion the ones for sale have been either poorly-designed, too expensive, in the wrong location, or some combination of all of those. I am designing this project with a lot of help from local architect, Jim Key, who also did the conversion of the derelict Curry's Video building into the Skatetorium-- what i considered to be a real transformation of a turd into something quite nice (tho I desperately want to see the owners cut down the horrible weeds sprouting all around it!)

Mark

Sounds great. I"m curious to see how this project comes out. I also agree with you. I think there is still some demand for condos. But as you already mentioned. Most of what's out there mainly caters to only a specific portion of the population. I certainly hope you do well with this project. Not just because I like to see you do well in general. But these are the type of projects I like to see happen here.

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Sounds great. I"m curious to see how this project comes out. I also agree with you. I think there is still some demand for condos. But as you already mentioned. Most of what's out there mainly caters to only a specific portion of the population. I certainly hope you do well with this project. Not just because I like to see you do well in general. But these are the type of projects I like to see happen here.

Thanks, Rod. I predict that soon there will be a rental housing shortage in the downtown/campus area that will spread to a shortage of properties for sale. Student population is growing and some portion of executive transferees are going to be reluctant to buy....

Mark

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Dickson Street Liquor has broken ground on a project that will expand their building and add a condo up top. There's a sign with a rendering down there at the site if anybody happens to get by with a decent camera.

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Dickson Street Liquor has broken ground on a project that will expand their building and add a condo up top. There's a sign with a rendering down there at the site if anybody happens to get by with a decent camera.

Thanks for the info. I had been by that area a while back and noticed it looked like they were preparing for some sort of construction. But I had no idea on what it was exactly. While expanding the store isn't that big of a surprise to me, the condo is. Maybe this weekend I can try to swing by, unless someone else beats me to it.